Course Listing

Fundamental concepts and formalisms of conservation of energy and increase of entropy as applied to natural and engineered environmental and biological systems. In addition to lectures, pedagogical approach includes real-world observations and applications through student presentations and projects.

This course will provide students with an introduction to environmental science and engineering by providing an overview of current environmental issues, including climate change, air pollution, and water pollution. Students critically evaluate underlying science and knowledge limitations, and explore the nexus between scientific knowledge, regulatory frameworks, and engineering solutions to some of the world's most pressing environmental problems. The course will emphasize the interconnected biological, geological, and chemical cycles of the earth system including the multi-dimensional impacts of human activity.

An introduction to the science of global warming/ climate change meant to assist students in understanding issues that often appear in the news and public debates. The course is meant for any student with basic math preparation, not assuming prior science courses. Topics include the greenhouse effect and the consequences of the rise of greenhouse gasses, including sea level rise, ocean acidification, heat waves, droughts, glacier melting, hurricanes, forest fires, and more. An ability to critically evaluate observations, predictions, and risks will be emphasized throughout. The students will be involved in in-class quantitative analysis of climate observations, feedbacks, and models via Python Jupyter notebooks that will be provided.

Statistical inference, deterministic and stochastic models of data, denoising and filtering, data, visualization, time series analysis, image processing, Monte Carlo methods. The course emphasizes hands-on learning using real data drawn from atmospheric and environmental observations, applied by students in projects and presentations.

The course provides an overview of Earth’s energy resources, with emphasize on the factors that control their global distributions and uses in our society. Lectures and labs will emphasize methods used to identify and exploit resources, as well as the environmental impact of these operations. Topics include: coal and acid rain; oil & natural gas, photochemical smog, oil spills; unconventional fossil resources (shale gas, tar sands); greenhouse gas emissions and climate; nuclear power and radioactive hazards; solar, hydroelectric, tidal, and geothermal power; energy storage (methane, hydrogen); and key materials (rare earth metals, lithium) required for the energy transition. Labs will emphasize datasets and tools (drilling methods, satellite remote sensing data, and subsurface imaging techniques) for discovering and developing resources, and assessing and mitigating environmental impacts. 

This course will examine the fundamental ecosystem and anthropogenic processes that govern the flow of carbon and nutrients in our environment. With five hands-on lab sessions covering topics such as carbon sequestration/mineralization, warming effect, methanogenesis, and nutrient removal, students will gain a holistic understanding and appreciation of physical, biological, chemical, and anthropogenic processes that shape our environment. The final lab will also serve as the final project where students design their own experiment and quantify/model the effect of global warming on an ecosystem process.

Physical concepts necessary to understand atmospheric structure and motion. Phenomena studied include the formation of clouds and precipitation, solar and terrestrial radiation, dynamical balance of the large-scale wind, and the origin of cyclones. Concepts developed for understanding today's atmosphere are applied to understanding the record of past climate change and the prospects for climate change in the future.

This course will examine the theory and practical application of environmental chemistry and toxicology for assessing the behavior, toxicity and human health risks of chemical contaminants in the environment. The goals of the course are to: (a) illustrate how various sub-disciplines in environmental toxicology are integrated to understand the behavior of pollutants; (b) demonstrate how scientific information is applied to inform environmental management decisions and public policy through several case studies; and (c) provide an introduction to the legislative framework in which environmental toxicology is conducted. This course will be directed toward undergraduate students with a basic understanding of chemistry and calculus and an interest in applied science and engineering to address environmental management problems.

This course provides an introduction to the global hydrologic cycle and relevant terrestrial and atmospheric processes. It covers the concepts of water and energy balance; atmospheric radiation, composition and circulation; precipitation formation; evaporation; vegetation transpiration; infiltration, storm runoff, and flood processes; groundwater flow and unsaturated zone processes; and snow processes.

This course is focused on aspects of environmental engineering related to the fate, transport, and control of pollution in surface water ecosystems. Course modules will cover ecological impacts of environmental contaminants; fundamental chemistry of natural waters; surface water aspects of engineering hydrology, including rainfall-runoff relationships; quantitative models of pollutant fate and transport in rivers, lakes, estuaries, and wetlands; best management practices for the prevention and control of aquatic pollution; and sustainable natural treatment systems for water quality improvement.

ESE/EPS 166 engages the new Harvard Climate Observatory that will fundamentally herald a new era in both climate research and the development of strategic approaches to advancing the climate impact on public policy. The central objective of the New Climate Observatory is to address this problem by introducing, for the first time, the development of a new generation of innovative technology that takes explicit advantage of recent major advances in Harvard-based instruments and optical designs in combination with advanced solar powered stratospheric aeronautical design. The new solar powered stratospheric aircraft that together constitute the Climate Observatory engage multiple recent design innovations in photovoltaics, energy storage, as well as guidance and control. Together these enable a combination of long duration solar powered observing systems, each targeted at the highest priority risk factors that threaten global societal stability. The resulting observations will, for the first time, provide the irrefutable evidence needed for quantitative forecasts of the dominant risk factors stemming from the global use of fossil fuels.

While satellites have for years dominated the federal climate programs, for the purpose of developing tested and trusted quantitative forecasts of risk, satellites engender significant disadvantages. In sharp contrast to satellite systems, the new Harvard Climate Observatory provides, for the first time, orders of magnitude improvement in spatial and temporal resolution observations. ESE/EPS 166 will focus explicitly on this new generation of climate observations, forecasting, and resulting advances in public policy. An important part of the course is the display of Harvard flight instruments in the laboratory and the strategy for addressing unsolved scientific problems with new instrumentation.

The purpose of this course is to develop understanding and guide student research of human and environmental systems. In class we will explore agriculture, conflict, and human health.  Study of each topic will involve introduction data, mathematical models, and analysis techniques that build toward addressing a major question at each interface: How does climate change influence agricultural systems? Has drought or other environmental factors caused conflict? And how does the environment shape health outcomes?  These topics are diverse, but are addressed using common analytical frameworks. Analytical approaches include simple mathematical models of feedback systems, crop development, and population disease dynamics; frequentist statistical techniques including linear, multiple linear, and panel regression models; and Bayesian methods including empirical, full, and hierarchical approaches. You will be provided with sufficient data, example code, and context to come to your own informed conclusions regarding each of these questions. Furthermore, topics covered in class will provide a template for undertaking independent research projects in small teams. Research will either extend on topics presented in class or address other human-environmental questions. Historically, such student projects have sometimes led to senior theses or publication in professional journals.

This course provides a cross-disciplinary overview of environmental science and how research contributes to public policy and human health risk assessment through a case study of a local pollution issue. The course will focus on exposing students to a combination of field, lab and modeling techniques used in environmental sciences through an intensive study of factors affecting the bioaccumulation of contaminants on Cape Cod, MA.  The class will include field visits, lab work, and interactive group research aimed at synthesizing research findings. Experience conducting multidisciplinary environmental research and data analysis will be provided. Course Activities: Lectures, discussions, presentations, field/lab research, data analysis.